Woh Hup Distinguished Lecture
Recent Advances in Modelling Coastal Dynamics and Extreme Ocean Wave Statistics
Hosted by
Assistant Professor Yuzhu Li, Pearl
Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering / Coastal Protection and Flood Resilience Singapore
Date/Time:
16 January 2026 | 3:00PM-4:30PM
Venue:
National University of Singapore
SDE3 - LT426
School of Design and Environment
4 Architecture Drive, Singapore 117566
Notes:
- Please feel free to reach out at cfisg@nus.edu.sg for any queries.
Abstract
Accurate prediction of coastal dynamics and extreme wave events is a central challenge in coastal and ocean engineering. This lecture highlights advances addressing long-standing problems in both areas. First, the widespread over-production of turbulence beneath surface waves in conventional CFD models—stemming from the instability of standard turbulence closures—is resolved, yielding major qualitative and quantitative improvements in surf-zone sediment transport and breaker-bar morphology. Second, classical statistical models of the surface elevation in nonlinear irregular seas are revisited, an area of little progress since the 1960s without restrictive assumptions. New theoretically based probability density functions reveal distinctly heavy positive tails, indicating substantially higher likelihood of extreme waves relative to classical approaches.
About Speaker
Professor David R. Fuhrman
Professor of Coastal Dynamics
Technical University of Denmark (DTU)
Department of Civil & Mechanical Engineering (DTU Construct)
David R. Fuhrman is Professor of Coastal Dynamics at the Technical University of Denmark. His research addresses fundamental and applied problems in coastal and ocean engineering, with contributions spanning surf-zone dynamics, sediment and pollutant transport, coastal morphodynamics, scour, turbulence modelling, and nonlinear wave hydrodynamics. He has authored approximately 100 peer-reviewed journal publications and co-authored the textbook Turbulence in Coastal and Civil Engineering. He currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of Applied Ocean Research, Associate Editor of the Journal of Waterways, Port, Coastal & Ocean Engineering, and sits on the editorial boards of Coastal Engineering, OpenFOAM Journal, and Journal of Marine Science and Application. His turbulence modelling developments are incorporated in widely used CFD packages, including OpenFOAM, StarCCM+, and DHI’s MIKE3.
